the hippopotamus.
behemoth—its diminishing number and contracting empire—its ugliness—a rogue hippopotamus or solitaire—dangerous meeting—intelligence and memory of the hippopotamus—methods employed for killing the hippopotamus—hippopotamus-hunting on the teoge.
‘behold now behemoth, which i made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox; his bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron; he lieth under the shady trees, in the covert of the reeds and fens. the shady trees cover him with their shadow; the willows of the brook compass him about. behold he drinketh up a river: he trusteth that he can draw up jordan into his mouth.’
thus, in the book of job, we find the hippopotamus portrayed with few words but incomparable power.
according to the inspired poet, this huge animal seems anciently to have inhabited the waters of palestine, but now it is nowhere to be found in asia; and even in africa the limits of its domain are perpetually contracting before the persecutions of man. it has entirely disappeared from egypt and cape colony, where le vaillant found it in numbers during the last century. in many respects a valuable prize; of easy destruction, in spite, or rather on account of its size, which betrays it to the attacks of its enemies; a dangerous neighbour to418 plantations, it is condemned to retreat before the waves of advancing civilisation, and would long since have been extirpated in all africa, if the lakes and rivers of the interior of that vast den of barbarism were as busily ploughed over as ours by boats and ships, or their banks as thickly strewn with towns and villages.
for the hippopotamus is not able, like so many other beasts of the wilderness, to hide itself in the gloom of impenetrable forests, or to plunge into the sandy desert; it requires the neighbourhood of the stream, the empire of which it divides with its amphibious neighbour the crocodile. occasionally during the day it is to be seen basking on the shore amid ooze and mud, but throughout the night the unwieldy monster may be heard snorting and blowing during its aquatic gambols; it then sallies forth from its reed-grown coverts to graze by the light of the moon, never, however, venturing to any distance from the river, the stronghold to which it retreats on the smallest alarm. it feeds on grass alone, and where there is any danger only at night. its enormous lips act like a mowing machine, and form a path of short cropped grass as it goes on eating.
in point of ugliness the hippopotamus might compete with the rhinoceros itself. its shapeless carcase rests upon short and disproportioned legs, and, with its vast belly almost trailing upon the ground, it may not inaptly be likened to an overgrown ‘prize-pig.’ its immensely large head has each jaw armed with two formidable tusks, those in the lower, which are always the largest, attaining at times two feet in length; and the inside of the mouth resembles a mass of butcher’s meat. the eyes, which are placed in prominences like the garret windows of a dutch house, the nostrils, and ears, are all on the same plane, on the upper level of the head, so that the unwieldy monster, when immersed in its favourite element, is able to draw breath, and to use three senses at once for hours together, without exposing more than its snout. the hide, which is upwards of an inch and a half in thickness, and of a pinkish-brown colour, clouded and freckled with a darker tint, is destitute of covering, excepting a few scattered hairs on the muzzle, the edges of the ears and tail. though generally mild and inoffensive, it is not to be wondered at that a creature like419 this, which when full-grown attains a length of eleven or twelve feet, and nearly the same colossal girth, affords a truly appalling spectacle when enraged, and that a nervous person may well lose his presence of mind when suddenly brought into contact with the gaping monster. even andersson, a man accustomed to all sorts of wild adventure, felt rather discomposed when one night a hippopotamus, without the slightest warning, suddenly protruded its enormous head into his bivouac, so that every man started to his feet with the greatest precipitation, some of the party, in the confusion, rushing into the fire and upsetting the pots containing the evening meal.
as among the elephants and other animals, elderly males are sometimes expelled the herd, and, for want of company, become soured in their temper, and so misanthropic as to attack every boat that comes near them. the ‘rogue-hippopotami’ frequent certain localities well known to the inhabitants of the banks, and, like the outcast elephants, are extremely dangerous. dr. livingstone, passing a canoe which had been smashed to pieces by a blow from the hind foot of one of them, was informed by his men that, in case of a similar assault being made on his boat, the proper way was to dive to the bottom of the river, and hold on there for a few seconds, because the hippopotamus, after breaking a canoe, always looks for the people on the surface, and if he sees none, soon moves off. he saw some frightful gashes made on the legs of the people who, having had the misfortune to be attacked, were unable to dive.
in rivers where it is seldom disturbed, such as the zambesi, the hippopotamus puts up its head openly to blow, and follows the traveller with an inquisitive glance, as if asking him, like the ‘moping owl’ in the elegy, why he comes to molest its ‘ancient solitary reign’? but in other rivers, such as those of londa, where it is much in danger of being shot, it takes good care to conceal its nose among water-plants, and to breathe so quietly that one would not dream of its existence in the river, except by footprints on the banks. notwithstanding its stupid look—its prominent eyes and naked snout giving it more the appearance of a gigantic boiled calf’s head than anything else—the huge creature is by no means deficient in intelligence, knows how to avoid pitfalls, and has so good a memory that, when it has once heard a ball whiz about its ears, it never after420 ceases to be wide-awake at the approach of danger. being vulnerable only behind the ear, however, or in the eye, it requires the perfection of rifle-practice to be hit; and when once in the water, is still more difficult to kill, as it dives and swims with all the ease of a walrus, its huge body being rendered buoyant by an abundance of fat. its flesh is said to be delicious, resembling the finest young pork, and is considered as great a delicacy in africa as a bear’s paw or a bison’s hump in the prairies of north america. the thick and almost inflexible hide may be dragged from the ribs in strips, like the planks from a ship’s side. these serve for the manufacture of a superior description of sjambok, the elastic whip with which the cape boor governs his team of twelve oxen or more, while proceeding on a journey. in northern africa it is used to chastise refractory dromedaries or servants; and the ancient egyptians employed it largely in the manufacture of shields, helmets, and javelins.
but the most valuable part of the hippopotamus is its teeth (canine and incisors), which are considered greatly superior to elephant ivory, and, when perfect and weighty, will fetch as much as one guinea per pound, being chiefly used for artificial teeth, since it does not readily turn yellow. all these uses to which the hippopotamus may be applied are naturally as many prices set upon its head; and the ravages it occasions in the fields are another motive for its destruction. on the white nile the peasantry burn a number of fires, to scare the huge animal from their plantations, where every footstep ploughs deep furrows into the marshy ground. at the same time, they keep up a prodigious clamour of horns and drums, to terrify the ruinous brute, which, as may well be imagined, is by no means so great a favourite with them as with the visitors of the zoological gardens.
they have besides another, and, where it succeeds, a far more efficacious method of freeing themselves from its depredations. they remark the places it most frequents, and there lay a large quantity of pease. when it comes on shore, hungry and voracious, it falls to eating what is nearest, and fills its vast stomach with the pease, which soon occasion an insupportable thirst. the river being close at hand, it immediately drinks whole421 buckets of water, which, by swelling the pease, cause it to blow up, like an overloaded mortar.
the natives on the teoge, and other rivers that empty themselves into lake ngami, kill the hippopotamus with iron harpoons, attached to long lines ending with a float. a huge reed raft, capable of carrying both the hunters and their canoes, with all that is needful for the prosecution of the chase, is pushed from the shore, and afterwards abandoned to the stream, which propels the unwieldy mass gently and noiselessly forward. long before the hippopotami can be seen, they make known their presence by awful snorts and grunts whilst splashing and blowing in the water. on approaching the herd—for the gregarious animal likes to live in troops of from twenty-five to thirty—the most skilful and intrepid of the hunters stands prepared with the harpoons, whilst the rest make ready to launch the canoes should the attack prove successful. the bustle and noise caused by these preparations gradually subside: at length not even a whisper is heard, and in breathless silence the hunters wait for the decisive conflict. the snorting and plunging become every moment more distinct; a bend in the stream still hides the animals from view; but now the point is passed, and monstrous figures, that might be mistaken for shapeless cliffs, did not ever and anon one or the other of them plunge and reappear, are seen dispersed over the troubled waters. on glides the raft, its crew worked up to the highest pitch of excitement, and at length reaches the herd, which, perfectly unconscious of danger, continue to enjoy their sports. presently one of the animals is in immediate contact with the raft. now is the critical moment; the foremost harpooner raises himself to his full height to give the greater force to the blow, and the next instant the iron is buried deep in the body of the bellowing hippopotamus. the wounded animal plunges violently and dives to the bottom, but all its efforts to escape are as ineffectual as those of the seal when pierced with the barbed iron of the greenlander.
as soon as it is struck, one or more of the men launch a canoe from off the raft, and hastening to the shore with the harpoon line, take a round turn with it about a tree, so that the animal may either be brought up at once, or should there be too great a strain on the line, ‘played,’ like a trout or salmon by422 the fisherman. sometimes both line and buoy are cast into the water, and all the canoes being launched from off the raft, chase is given to the poor brute, who whenever he comes to the surface is saluted with a shower of javelins. a long trail of blood marks his progress, his flight becomes slower and slower, his breathing more oppressive, until at last, his strength ebbing away through fifty wounds, he floats dead on the surface.
but as the whale will sometimes turn upon his assailants, so also the hippopotamus not seldom makes a dash at his persecutors, and either with his tusks, or with a blow from his head, staves in or capsizes the canoe. sometimes even, not satisfied with wreaking his vengeance on the craft, he seizes one or other of the crew, and with a single grasp of his jaws, either terribly mutilates the poor wretch or even cuts his body fairly in two.
the natives of southern africa, also resort to the ingenious but cruel plan of destroying the hippopotamus by means of a trap, consisting of a beam, four or five feet long, armed with a spear-head or hard wood spike, covered with poison, and suspended to a forked pole by a cord, which coming down to the path, is held by a catch, to be set free when the beasts tread on it. on the banks of many rivers these traps are set over every track which the animals have made in going up out of the water to graze; but the hippopotami, being wary brutes, are still very numerous. while dr. livingstone was on the river shine, a hippopotamus got frightened by the ship, as she was steaming close to the banks. in its eager hurry to escape from an imaginary danger, the poor animal fell into a very real one, for rushing on shore, it ran directly under a trap, when down came the heavy beam on its back, driving the poisoned spear-head a foot deep in its flesh. in its agony, it plunged back into the river, where it soon after expired.
